Warning: this personal story contains descriptions of graphic violence and death.

I took antidepressants every day for a decade. You name the drug and I was probably on it at some point--Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Lithium, Celexa, the list goes on. The medication, prescribed to me after a bout of severe obsessive-compulsive behavior, left me emotionally numb. Most of my feelings were buried under a thick mental fog, making it impossible to connect with people, or sense the aliveness of the world around me. On a scale from one to ten, excitement, joy, and sympathy rarely reached more than a two. I simply couldn't look forward to anything, or care in the least about anyone. The love I had always felt for my family vanished after only a few months on meds.

This brain fog made life seem unreal. I would often be driving somewhere, or talking to someone, or wandering through a mall, and the whole process went on without my awareness, as though I wasn't a fully conscious participant, but a dreamer trapped within a dream.

After two years on antidepressants, I found something that gave me a jolt of feeling strong enough to wake me up for a moment.

I was surfing the internet one night when I clicked on a mysterious video file called Unknown Soldier(very graphic). Sitting alone in the dark, I watched a young man get his head sawed off with a large hunting knife. As the blade carved through flesh and tendon, the victim's screams of terror turned into gurgles of death.

I could not believe my eyes. Hollywood movie violence is one thing, footage of a real murder is another. The sheer brutality of the film lifted me out of the fog and into a mildly disturbed state of mind. I clicked the play button again and again, trying to keep my stomach churning for as long as possible. It wasn't the most pleasant feeling in the world, and I knew I should have felt much worse than I did, but at least I was feeling something.

A month later I joined a shock website called Ogrish, which featured the most gruesome content on the internet—suicides, executions, animal torture, the sickest stuff you can imagine. I saved anything that moved me in a file on my desktop. The problem was that it took a lot to move me, and because I never felt the same way the second time I watched something, I was always searching for the next gut-wrenching image or video, like a drug user chasing an elusive high.

I often visited the Ogrish chat room, where members discussed recently added content. One night, the chat room erupted when a video surfaced of a cat being burned alive. Everyone shared their opinion, but only one opinion caught my attention: “That was the first time I felt anything since going on Paxil,” wrote one member.

I immediately sent her a private message, asking how long she'd been on the drug, and if she knew anyone else on Ogrish who was taking meds. She told me that five other members she chatted with were on antidepressants. She also told me that they watched the videos to “try and stir some kind of emotion.” I could barely wrap my head around it. Somehow my obsession with violence had led me into a subculture of 'med-heads', all searching for their humanity in the same way.

This discovery should have had me running to my family doctor with some concerns. But of course that didn't happen. I couldn't think clearly enough to figure things out. To be honest, I still wasn't sure if we were all crazy, or if the antidepressants had fried our circuits.

I spent the next seven years giving myself daily doses of horror. Sometimes I looked at morgue photos all night long, staring into lifeless eyes until a sense of wrongness slithered through me. When that didn't work, I read news reports about vicious gang beatings, trying to visualize the crimes and induce an emotional reaction. Any feeling would do—empathy, disgust, even shame for indulging in such morbid behavior. But after a while I couldn't feel a thing. By 2008 I'd grown so desensitized that I began to question whether or not I was human. That's when I decided to go off the medication.

To avoid any family drama or protest, I quit the antidepressants on my own, in secret, cold turkey. This was a huge mistake, for the mental fog lifted far too quickly, exposing me to years of suppressed thought and emotion all at once. One minute I'd be weeping uncontrollably for no reason; the next minute I'd be curled up in a ball, paralyzed by anxiety. A constant agitation burned inside my brain. If someone said the wrong thing at the wrong time, looked at me a certain way, did something I didn't approve of, this flame lit me up with rage. Thankfully I kept it all inside.

It took several weeks for my head to settle down, but when it finally did I noticed many positive changes in my behavior. I no longer had any urge to get drunk, to smoke weed, to gamble like a maniac. These artificial highs were unnecessary. I also had absolutely no urge to watch violent material. Just the thought of going on Ogrish made me queasy.

But curiosity soon caught up to me. Four months later, with my perceptions clearer than ever before, I returned to the website to test my reaction. I could feel my skin crawling, my heart pounding when I entered the video section, which now seemed like such a dark and immoral place. I watched ten seconds of a homeless man getting beaten to death before shutting off the video in a state of shock. It was the most horrible thing I'd ever seen, and as I struggled to understand how anyone could do that to another human being, I became dizzy and nearly threw up.

In the midst of my discomfort, an overwhelming sense of relief washed over me, as I knew that my reaction was finally a healthy one. I never went on Ogrish again.

I've been med-free since 2008, and I'm happy to admit that I am an extremely sensitive person. Sometimes I cry when I feel sad, or when someone I love feels sad. Sometimes I get so excited that my stomach fills with butterflies, all fluttering at once. Sometimes I can feel a stranger's pain or fear, as though I am standing in their place at that moment—suddenly they aren't a stranger anymore, but a reflection of myself.

My emotions come in a variety of colors, from vibrant yellow to dismal gray, and they remind me that I am awake and alive and connected to the world.

As odd as it may sound, I don't regret taking the antidepressants, because without that foggy decade in my life, I may have never learned to appreciate what it means to be human.

This story was featured on Mad In America, where it sparked some interesting discussion in the comments section: Beneath the Fog

This is so bravely authentic and inspiring, Michael. Congratulations on owning your humanity and validating your true spirit nature. I also came off psych drugs after a long period of time and reclaimed my true self. It is a journey like no other. Bravo!

Reply

Michael

4/28/2016 03:25:56 pm

Hi Alex, was your journey on antidepressants an emotionally numb and disconnected one?

Reply

alex

5/2/2016 07:58:54 am

Hi Michael, I was on mood stabilizers, neuroleptics and benzos in addition to the anti-deps so it's impossible to tell what caused what.

As far as the effects of all this on my emotions, more than numb and disconnected, I would say that it confused my emotions. I don't believe I ever stopped feeling, but my emotions felt distorted and misdirected. Perhaps there were times when I was not feeling something whereas normally I would more than likely had a reaction, but this was a 20 year period during which, despite any psych drugs I was taking, I was working and going to school, around tons of people, and I felt somewhat stabilized (at least relative to how I'd been feeling in the past), although really that was an illusion because I had all sorts of internal symptoms and panic attacks etc., but I somehow managed to work full time and go to school, and have a life in general. I just did the best I could with the side effects.

What I discovered when I came off of them and stabilized and grounded after the long withdrawal process, was that I could not only feel my emotional responses as reasonable and aligned with how I really felt about things, but I could also direct them in a more productive way--that is, I felt control over my emotions, and balanced in them. As a result, in addition to my health totally coming back into balance, I also started creating and experiencing things I enjoyed, and life became so much better because I felt in control, rather than being controlled by brain-altering and energy-depleting medications.

Christopher Mark Theodore

5/17/2016 04:42:33 pm

I think there is a lot of truth in Shakespeare's advice that he gives the world when the father of Laertes is giving his son advice something to the effect "do not give word to every one of our thoughts". I liked very much your story about visiting the old age home and came to this site because of it. I skimmed and then avoided the content of your story on antidepressents because of the details you included-- which are actually not helpful or inspiring, such as the actual name of the website of horrible things. There is a place for details and there is a place (and gift given) for avoiding providing detailes... We can tell a story without the ones that can lead others astray and into a pit.

That said, I think you are a great writer and I hope you continue writing because you have a good, honest voice and a beautiful way of communicating...

Keep up the good work Michael!

Reply

Michael

5/18/2016 03:04:17 am

Hi Christopher,

This personal story was originally published on www.madinamerica.com, a community interested in critically rethinking mental health care in the US and abroad. The story was very well-received, and much to my delight, many people came forward to describe eerily similar experiences while taking antidepressants—extreme emotional numbing, an unconscious urge to feel anything(even disgust through violence), and a sudden revival of basic human emotion once off the drugs.

Unfortunately, not all stories can be laden with rainbows and lollypops. Some stories—often the most relatable ones—detail a dark and gruesome nightmare that the protagonist must endure before finally waking up.

Believe me, the last thing I want to do is increase the traffic of any website that thrives on evil. I used the real name of the website because I feel it may actually decrease traffic. Having Ogrish, antidepressants, and emotional numbing in the search engine is a good idea. If some poor Ogrish member reads my story they may have a sudden awakening: “Whoa … I never looked at this shit before I went on meds either.” I truly believe the chance of that happening is much higher than a reader drifting over to Ogrish. The people reading stories on The Mind Well or Mad In America are looking to raise their level of consciousness, not lower it.

It sounds like you didn't actually read the whole thing, but instead sort of tuned out once you reached a few unpleasant descriptions. It's totally fine if the piece doesn't resonate with you. Maybe you have never been chemically lobotomized, or maybe you abhor the grim mental imagery. But there are a lot of people who need to read this story, people who are suffering just as I suffered. If my words can jump-start an awakening for just one person in ten who read them, it is more than worth my effort.

I do appreciate you taking the time to comment, Christopher. I encourage any and all feedback. Also, thank you so much for your words of encouragement. Very uplifting!